This invention relates to racks for laying tiles and particularly to a rack for laying tile on the vertical wall above a fireplace.
Tiled surfaces on the interior walls of buildings, particularly the bathrooms and kitchens of private residences is a very desirable feature. A number of supports have appeared on the market that have been intended to facilitate laying tiles against the wall.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,850,404 to Stegmeier discloses a rack for laying a single course of tile along the water line of a swimming pool.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,583,343 to Camp discloses a tile setting kit for uniform placement of tiles on either a vertical or horizontal surface including a starter rack with uniformly displaced spacers that is set on the floor for setting the first course of tiles, an elongated guide frame having replaceable spacer rails with a plurality of uniformly arranged spacer teeth and a support structure with a brace arm and suction attachment that engages the adjacent lower Course of set tiles.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,373 to Osawa discloses an apparatus for setting tiles on a surface of plaster comprising a rack of vertical bars and horizontal bars welded or screwed together and joined permanently to the wall.
For many years, bricks and stone have been the material of choice for building fireplaces in these residences. To some extent, the selection of a finished surface of brick (painted or unpainted) or bare stone rather than a finished tile surface over brick or stone has been dictated because of the extra expense and difficulties required to lay the tile on the wall extending up over the fireplace. A major difficulty is the job of laying the first course of tiles evenly along the top edge of the fireplace opening. None of the cited art is adapted for laying the first course of tiles along the top edge of the fireplace,
It is an object of this invention to provide a support and method of using the support to set a first course of tile along the top edge of a fire place opening.
It is another object that the support be adjustable to accommodate setting tiles over fireplaces where height of the top edge of the fireplace above the ground level is any one of a range of heights and any one of a range of widths.
This invention is directed toward a bridge for aiding in setting tile on a surface above a fireplace having an entrance, with a width and height, a floor and a top edge. The bridge includes a guide pair of elongated guide bars and a support pair of elongated support bars, each guide bar and support bar having an elongated slot. The guide pair of guide bars is bolted together by fasteners through the slots providing a single guide bar having two ends. Each end of the single guide bar is bolted to near an end of one of the support bars by a fastener through the slots, thereby forming the bridge and permitting that the bridge be positionable at the entrance to the fireplace. A lower end of each support bar is supported on the floor of the fireplace with the single guide bar positionable along the top edge of the entrance. A plurality of tiles is set against a front surface of a wail above the fireplace with a lower edge of each tile arranged parallel to and along the horizontal edge with each tile resting against a top edge of the single guide bar;